Council Tax and Stamp Duty Alternatives Debate
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Peter Gibson
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Council Tax and Stamp Duty Alternatives
Peter Gibson Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
Thank you, Mrs Harris, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) on securing this debate.
The council tax system is fundamentally flawed. As we have heard from the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), the property values are from 1991 and are in many cases entirely hypothetical, leading to individuals paying a higher share of their property value and an ever-increasing share of their income.
Analysis by Fairer Share computes that almost 99% of the 50,000 homes in Darlington could benefit from a reduction of approximately £750 a year in their local council tax. That is a significant saving for every home in my constituency. We cannot ignore the potential savings for that community.
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and I declare an interest: I was a high street solicitor prior to being elected to this place. I saw on a daily basis the adverse effects on the housing market of stamp duty, which is putting a barrier in the way of home ownership and home moves, causing a bunching of pricing where tax levels change and, basically, using the legal profession as an unpaid tax collector.
A reform to local council revenue and housing market taxes is overdue. Some 30 years since its introduction, we must consider alternatives to council tax. There is the potential to make the system significantly fairer for some of our poorest communities across the country, and we should not dismiss the idea of a proportional property tax too quickly. I look forward to the Minister’s considered responses and thoughts on the matter.